Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:48:22.149Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinatowns and Borderlands: Inter-Asian encounters in the diaspora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2012

EVELYN HU-DEHART
EVELYN HU-DEHART*
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University, Box 1886, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, 02912 Email: Evelyn_Hu-DeHart@Brown.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores two dynamic places and spaces in the Americas, destination of several Asian diasporas—the Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian—as contact and exchange zones. One would be the ethnic enclaves commonly called ‘Chinatowns’, which stretch over time from the early sixteenth century to the present, and over space from Manila in the Spanish empire across the Pacific to all over the Americas. These Chinatowns, imagined and real and riddled with stereotypes, are well-known tropes on the American landscapes, and need no further preliminary introduction; they are also firmly located within fixed national (or colonial) entities.

The second space has not been historically associated with Asian diasporas in the Americas, although well known for different reasons. Here I refer to ‘borderlands’, the overlapping space between, over, and above two political national boundaries or borders, in particular the US-Mexican and US-Canadian borderlands, both, coincidentally, clearly marked and delineated by the mid-nineteenth century (1848 and 1846 respectively). Furthermore, as these two transnational/transborder regions are also trans-Pacific, their recognition as an integral part of Asian diasporas is belated and overdue. To make the case further, the study of Asians in the Americas has revealed that Asian migrants, labour, and capital have been historically drawn to these borderlands because they represent dynamic zones of economic development, first in the heyday of maturing American capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century, and again in the glaring eye of current late-capitalist globalization. In other words, Asians have amassed on both sides of these borders for over 100 years, where they have become adept at multiple border crossings, both trans-Pacific and transnational.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2: Sites of Asian Interaction , March 2012 , pp. 425 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Appelbaum, R. P. and Gereffi, G., ‘Power and Profits in the Apparel Commodity Chain’, in Bonacich, E., Cheng, L., Chinchilla, N., Hamilton, N. and Ong, P. (eds), Global Production; The Apparel Industry in the Pacific Rim (Philadelphia: Temple, 1994)Google Scholar; Mitter, S., Common Fate, Common Bond. Women in the Global Economy (London: Pluto, 1986)Google Scholar; Ong, P., Bonacich, E. and Cheng, L., ‘The Political Economy of Capitalist Restructuring and the New Asian Immigrants’, in Ong, P., Bonacich, E. and Cheng, L. (eds), The New Asian Immigrants in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring (Philadelphia: Temple, 1994), pp. 3–43Google Scholar; Safa, H., ‘Runaway Shops and Female Employment: The Search for Cheap Labour’, SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 7 (2), 1981, pp. 418–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sassen, S., The Mobility of Labour and Capital. A Study in International Investment and Labour Flow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Sassen-Koob, S., ‘Notes on the Incorporation of Third World Women into Wage Labour Through Immigration and Off-Shore Production’, International Migration Review, 18 (4), 1984, pp. 1144–67CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Smith, D. A., ‘Going South: Global Restructuring and Garment Production in Three East Asian Cases’, Asian Perspectives, 20 (2), 1993, pp. 211–41Google Scholar.

2 Chin, K. L., Smuggled Chinese. Clandestine Immigration to the United States (Philadelphia: Temple, 1999)Google Scholar; Kwong, P., Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labour (New York: The New Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Smith, P. (ed.), Human Smuggling. Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Immigrant Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994)Google Scholar.

3 J. Loucky, M. Saldatenko, G. Scott and E. Bonacich, ‘Immigrant Enterprise and Labour in the Los Angeles Garment Industry’, in Bonacich et al. Global Production, pp. 345–61; Sassen, Mobility of Labour, p. 94.

4 This report is incorporated in: International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, The Chinatown Garment Study (New York: International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 1997), p. 9.

5 E. Bonacich and D. W. Walker, ‘Mapping a Global Industry: Apparel Production in the Pacific Rim Triangle’, in Bonacich et al. Global Production, pp. 21–41; E. Blumenberg and P. Ong, ‘Labour Squeeze and Ethnic/Racial Recomposition in the US Apparel Industry’, in Bonacich et al. Global Production, pp. 309–27.

6 Blumenberg and Ong, ‘Labour Squeeze’, p. 320; Ong, Bonacich and Cheng, ‘The Political Economy of Capitalist Restructuring’.

7 Louie, M. C., ‘After Sewing, Laundry, Cleaning and Cooking, I Have No Breath Left to Sing. Immigrant Asian Women in Bay Area Garment Sweatshops’, Amerasia Journal, 18 (1), 1992, pp. 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Loucky et al., ‘Immigrant Enterprise and Labour’, p. 348.

9 E. Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’, in Bonacich et al. Global Production, pp. 137–63; Green, C., ‘The Asian Connection: The US-Caribbean Apparel Circuit and a New Model of Industrial Relations’, Latin American Research Review, 33 (3), 1998, pp. 7–47Google Scholar; Loucky et al., ‘Immigrant Enterprise and Labour’; Mitter, Common Fate; Ong, Bonacich and Cheng, ‘The Political Economy of Capitalist Restructuring’; Smith, ‘Going South’; Waldinger, R., Through the Eye of the Needle. Immigrants and Enterprises in New York's Garment Trades (New York: New York University, 1985), p. 52Google Scholar.

10 Waldinger, Through the Eye of the Needle, p. 52; Ross, A. (ed.), No Sweat. Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers (New York: Verso, 1997), p. 13Google Scholar.

11 Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’, p. 150; S. Nutter, ‘The Structure and Growth of the Los Angeles Garment Industry’, in Ross, No Sweat, p. 199.

12 Appelbaum, R. P. and Bonacich, E., Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry (Los Angeles: University of California, 2000)Google Scholar; Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’.

13 Nutter, ‘Structure and Growth’, p. 199; Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’, p. 143.

14 United States General Accounting Office (GAO), ‘Sweatshops in New York City: A Local Example of a Nationwide Problem’, Washington, D.C. Report No. GAO/HRD-89–101 BR, p. 53; Ong, P., ‘Immigrant Wives' Labour Force Participation’, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 26 (3), 1987, pp. 296–303Google Scholar; Wong, M. G., ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States. A Look at the Garment Industry’, in Simpson, I. H. and Simpson, R. L. (eds), Research in the Sociology of Work. A Research Annal. Volume II: Peripheral Workers (Amsterdam: JAI/Elsevier Press, 1983), pp. 367–79Google Scholar; Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’.

15 Green, ‘The Asian Connection’, p. 11; Nutter, ‘Structure and Growth’, p. 203; Wong, ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States’; Louie, ‘After Sewing’; S. Gold, ‘Chinese-Vietnamese Entrepreneurs in California’, in Ong, Bonacich and Cheng (eds), The New Asian Immigrants, pp. 196–226.

16 United States General Accounting Office, ‘Sweatshops in New York City’, p. 28; Wong, ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States’; Louie, ‘After Sewing’.

17 Bonacich, ‘Asians in the Garment Industry’, pp. 145–47.

18 United States General Accounting Office, ‘Sweatshops in New York City’, p. 26; C. Proper, ‘New York Defending the Union Contract’, in Ross, No Sweat, pp. 189–90.

19 United States General Accounting Office, ‘Sweatshops in New York City’, p. 1.

20 M. Piore, ‘The Economics of the Sweatshop’, in Ross, No Sweat, pp. 135–42.

21 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Chinatown Garment Study, p. 116; Huang, F-Y, Asian and Hispanic Immigrant Women in the Work Force. Implications of the United States Immigration Policies since 1963 (New York: Garland, 1997), p. 78Google Scholar.

22 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Chinatown Garment Study, pp. 45, 98.

23 Wong, ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States’.

24 Toji, D. S. and Johnson, J. H., ‘The Working Poor and the Jobless Poor: Asians and Pacific Islander American Poverty’, Amerasia Journal, 18 (1), 1992, pp. 83–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Sweatshop Watch Newsletter, 1995–99; now available at <http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/globaldocs/38/>, [accessed 11 February 2011].

26 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Chinatown Garment Study, p. 59; Waldinger, Through the Eye of the Needle; Wong, ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States’.

27 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Chinatown Garment Study, pp. 62–79.

28 C. Hays, ‘Immigrants Strain Resources in Chinatown’, New York Times, 30 May 1990.

29 Proper, ‘New York’, p. 210.

30 United States General Accounting Office, ‘Sweatshops in New York City’, pp. 26–28; Wong, Through the Eye of the Needle; Morrison, ‘Chinese Sweatshops in the United States’.

31 United States General Accounting Office, ‘Sweatshops in New York City’, p. 54.

32 Nutter, ‘Structure and Growth’, p. 200.

33 S. Greenhouse, ‘US Says Many Garment Shops Break the Law’, New York Times, 17 October 1997, p. A17.

34 C. S. Chang, ‘Transpacific Borderlands and Boundaries: Race, Migration, and State Formation in the North American Pacific Rim, 1882–1917’, PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2007.

35 Chang, ‘Transpacific Borderlands’, pp. 35–44.

36 Chang, ‘Transpacific Borderlands’, p. 6.

37 Chang, ‘Transpacific Borderlands’, pp. 58–76.

38 Chang, ‘Transpacific Borderlands’, p. 87.

39 Alfaro-Velcamp, T., So Far From Allah, So Close to Mexico. Middle Eastern Immigrants in Modern Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

40 Hu-DeHart, E., ‘Immigrants to a Developing Society: The Chinese in Northern Mexico, 1875–1932’, Journal of Arizona History, 21 (Autumn) 1980, pp. 49–85Google Scholar; Hu-DeHart, E., ‘The Chinese of Baja California Norte, 1910–1934’, Proceedings of the Pacific Coast Council of Latin American Studies, 12, 1985, pp. 9–30Google Scholar; Hu-DeHart, E., ‘Mexico: Inmigrantes a una frontera en desarrollo’, in Cuando Oriente llegó a América (Washington, D.C.: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, 2004), pp. 53–77Google Scholar.

41 F. García y Alva, México y sus progresos, ‘Album-directorio del Estado de Sonora’, Hermosillo, Imprenta Oficial, 1905–07, full page advertisement for Leytón, no pagination.

42 Leo M. D. Jacques, ‘The Anti-Chinese Campaign in Sonora, Mexico, 1900–1931’, PhD thesis, University of Arizona, 1974, p. 45.

43 Craib, R., ‘Uncovering the Chinese in Mexico’, American Philatelist, 112 (5), 1998, pp. 448–55Google Scholar.

44 Hu-DeHart, ‘Immigrants to a Developing Society’, p. 284, citing US Consular Reports.

45 Delgado, G. P., ‘At Exclusion's Southern Gate: Changing Categories of Race and Class Among Chinese Fronterizos, 1882–1904’, in Truett, S. and Young, E. (eds), Continental Crossroads. Mapping US-Mexico Borderlands History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 187–90Google Scholar.

46 Hu-DeHart, ‘Immigrants to a Developing Society’, pp. 284–85.

47 Hu-DeHart, ‘México’, see Table 3.3, pp. 64–67.

48 Simpich, cited in Hu-DeHart, ‘Immigrants to a Developing Society’, p. 286.

49 J. M. S. Camacho, ‘Traversing Boundaries: Chinese, Mexicans, and Chinese Mexicans in the Formation of Gender, Race and Nation in the Twentieth-Century US-Mexican Borderlands’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at El Paso, 2006.

50 Hu-DeHart, ‘The Chinese’.

51 Bell, P. L., Mexican West Coast and Lower California: A Commercial and Industrial Survey (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923)Google Scholar.

52 Owenby, D. and Heidhues, M. S. (eds), ‘Secret Societies’ Reconsidered. Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993)Google Scholar; Trocki, C. A., Opium and Empire. Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800–1910 (Ithaca: Cornell, 1990)Google Scholar.

53 Cited in Hu-DeHart, ‘The Chinese’, p. 12.

54 Hamilton, G., ‘Ethnicity and Regionalism: Some Factors Influencing Chinese Identities in Southeast Asia’, in Ethnicity, 4, 1977, pp. 337–51Google Scholar; Hoy, W., The Chinese Six Companies in San Francisco: Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (San Francisco: CCBA, 1942)Google Scholar; H. M. Lai, ‘Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association/Huiguan System’, Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 1986, pp. 13–51.

55 Glick, C. and Hong, S-W, Swords of Silence. Chinese Secret Societies Past and Present (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947)Google Scholar; Gong, E. Y. and Grant, B., Tong War! (New York: Nicolas L. Brown, 1930)Google Scholar.

56 Hoy, The Chinese Six Companies, pp. 20–23.

57 Hu-DeHart, E., ‘Voluntary Associations in a Predominantly Male Immigrant Community: The Chinese on the Northern Mexican Frontier, 1880–1930’, in Kuah-Pearce, K. E. and Hu-DeHart, E. (eds), Voluntary Organizations in the Chinese Diaspora (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), pp. 141–68Google Scholar.

58 Davis, F., Primitive Revolutionaries of China. A Study of Secret Societies in the Late Nineteenth Century (Hawaii: University of Hawaii, 1977)Google Scholar; Tsai, H. S., China and the Overseas Chinese in the United States, 1868–1911 (Fayetteville: Arkansas, 1986)Google Scholar.

59 Lee, E., At America's Gate: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 2003)Google Scholar.